well as the tribunes could take such action. If the case involved only a fine, it was tried before the comitia tributa by an ædile or tribune.

These methods of trial were practically superseded after the time of Sulla by the establishment of the standing courts (see below). They were, however, sometimes revived, as in Cicero's own case.

It had always been competent for the people to establish a quaestio or investigation to try persons suspected of crimes (quaestiones extraordinariae). After the analogy of this proceeding, Sulla established standing courts (quaestiones perpetuae) differing from previous quaestiones only in that they were continuous instead of being appointed upon any particular occasion. It was before these that most crimes were tried.1 Examples of such trials are found in Rosc. Am. (p. 1) and Verres (p. 26).

Such a court consisted of a presiding judge, quaesitor (praetor, or judex quæstionis), who caused a jury (judices) to be impanelled and sworn (hence called jurati), varying in number in the different courts and at different times, to try the case under his presidency. These judices were drawn by lot from a standing body (judices selecti), the exact number of which is unknown,2 and a right of challenging existed as with us. This body was originally made up from the Senatorial Order, but a law of C. Gracchus (B.C. 123) provided that the judices should be taken from non-Senators who possessed the equestrian census (see p. lxii, above). From this time the Senators and the Equites contended for the control of the courts. Sulla restored to the Senators the exclusive privilege of sitting as judices (B.C. 80), but the Aurelian Law (B.C. 70) provided that the jurors should be taken, one-third from the Senators and two-thirds from the Equestrian Order, and that one-half of the Equites chosen (i.e. one-third of the whole number of judices) should have held the office of Tribunus Aerarius (i.e. president of one of the thirty-five local tribes, see p. liv, above). This regulation remained in force until the dictatorship of Cæsar, B.C. 45, when this decuria of Tribuni Aerarii was abolished. A majority of the jurors decided the verdict. The president had no vote, nor did he decide the law of the case: he had merely charge of the proceedings as a presiding magistrate. (Cf. Verr. i. 32, for a hint at his powers.) For the method of voting, see note on Defence of Milo, p. 177, l. 19.

1 Sulla's quaestiones perpetuae were eight or ten in number. Six of these-Repetundae (extortion), Ambitus (bribery), Peculatus (embezzlement), Majestas (treason), de Sicariis et Veneficis (murder), and probably Falsi (counterfeiting and fraud) — were presided over by six of the eight prætors. For the other two (or four), ex-ædiles (aedilicii) were appointed to preside as judices quaestionis.

2 For cases of extortion the number was specially fixed by the Lex Acilia at four hundred and fifty, from whom fifty were chosen as jurors.

SELECT ORATIONS OF CICERO

DEFENCE OF ROSCIUS

B.C. 80

SEXTUS ROSCIUS was a rich and respected citizen of Ameria, an Umbrian town (municipium) about fifty miles north of Rome. He had a taste for city life, and spent most of his time at the capital, where he was on intimate terms with some of the highest families, especially the Metelli and Scipios. Meantime his son Sextus, who certainly lacked his father's cultivated tastes, and who was accused by his enemies of rudeness and clownishness, had charge of the extensive family estates at Ameria.

Sometime during the dictatorship of Sulla (probably in the autumn of 81 B.C.) the elder Roscius was murdered one evening as he was returning from a dinner party. The murder was no doubt procured, or at least connived at, by one Titus Roscius Magnus, his fellowtownsman and enemy. However that may be, the name of the murdered man was put upon the proscription-list by a freedman and favorite of Sulla, one Chrysogonus, who bought his confiscated estates at auction at a nominal price. Three of these estates (there were thirteen in all)